King Mackerel
I caught a tremendous fish…
And I let the fish go.
—Elizabeth Bishop
All the people are old people.
Older than me.
Granddad took me fishing
with one of his friends.
They said we’d catch flounder.
They killed the engine
near the bridge pilings.
The lines stayed slack
until a red and white
floater fell below
the bay’s polluted waves.
I thought I felt a flounder
heaving hard on the hook.
I reeled it up—
a fish,
cylindrical and silver.
Alert, black eyes peered
at me. He floundered
against the skiff’s side
with a barbed hook inside
his young, unscarred mouth.
Jake Leonard
LOYOLA
BLAKEFIELD
LITARTMAG
2014
19